Interest
1/1 Fist of the North Star Figure Sold for 3 Million Yen
posted on by Egan Loo
The life-size Fist of the North Star figure — that happens to be inlaid with 500,000 Swarovski crystals — received a final bid of 3 million yen (about US$39,000) in a December auction on the Yahoo! Japan website. The crystals alone on this statue of manga lead character Kenshirō are worth 10 million yen (US$130,000).
The winner of the auction is a self-employed man in his 40s from Fujieda City in Shizuoka Prefecture, southwest of Tokyo. According to the winner, his entire family are all Fist of the North Star fans; "I'll make [the statue] a family heirloom," he said. He did receive his wife's consent before bidding on the auction.
The 185-centimeter-tall (73-inch-tall) figure now stands in the winner's living room. He put it in a custom-made acrylic case to protect it from dust and earthquakes.
Tokuma Shoten's Coamix imprint and its Monthly Comic Zenon magazine sponsored the creation of the figure to promote their online store. The well-known figure maker Kaiyodo produced the figure under the supervision of Fist of the North Star's own creator, Tetsuo Hara. It took 10 designers three months to decorate the statue with 52 kinds of crystals.
10% of the final 3-million-yen bid was donated to the Japanese Red Cross for efforts in the areas affected by the March 11 Great Eastern Japan Earthquake (Higashi Nihon Daishinsai) disaster.
Source: Mainichi Shimbun's Mantan Web
Image © North Star Pictures
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